Edgwarebury

Edgwarebury, Barnet

Also spelt as two separate words, Edgwarebury is farming country straddling the M1 motorway and the Hertfordshire border north of Edgware

Edgwarebury Lane - geograph-2379208-by-Martin-Addison

To the east lies the oak woodland of Scratch­wood, which dates back to the last Ice Age, while vestiges of Celtic fields have been discerned to the north.

‘Bury’ was Old English for a manor or manor house and Edgware­bury seems to have been the focus of the manor of Edgware through the Middle Ages and beyond. The manor was acquired by All Souls College, Oxford, in 1443, when Earlsbury Farm was the ‘chief demesne farm’ here.

A clause in Earlsbury Farm’s lease in 1602 stip­u­lated that the lords of the manor or their repre­sen­ta­tives should be given accom­mo­da­tion at the farmhouse when visiting the manor on official business. This farmhouse was replaced in the early 17th century by the timber-framed Bury Farm, which was extended in the 18th century. The farmhouse was robbed in 1735 by the Essex Gang (also known as the Gregory Gang), whose members included Dick Turpin. The elderly house­holder was tortured in this noto­ri­ously wicked home invasion, and a female servant was raped.

Edgware­bury Lane used to connect with Fortune Lane in Elstree until the fields were enclosed in 1854 and Edgware­bury Lane was diverted northward.

Builders AW Curton laid out the upmarket Edgware­bury Lane estate in 1935, offering super­sized prop­er­ties such as a six-bedroom house for £1,785.

Edgware­bury Park lies on the edge of built-up Edgware. Evidence of the older landscape of fields and woodland remains here, in addition to more recent planting of trees and garden areas. To the south of the park, the land slopes towards the Edgware­bury Brook.

Edgware­bury cemetery opened in 1972 and approval for its enlarge­ment was granted in 2010. The funeral of the singer/songwriter Amy Winehouse took place at the cemetery in July 2011 and her body was after­wards cremated at Golders Green crematorium.

A proposal to create an 18-hole golf course on green belt land west of Edgware­bury Farm was unan­i­mously rejected by Barnet council’s planning committee in November 2015.

Beyond the M1 and the London border, the mock-Tudor Edgwarebury Hotel has satisfied Elstree studios’ location requirements on many occasions – usually doubling as the home of some rich eccentric – including in three episodes of The Avengers television series. The Laura Ashley design house acquired the hotel in 2011 and naffly renamed it ‘The Manor, Elstree’. In January 2019 Laura Ashley Holdings sold the property to Countrywide Hotels for £6 million. It’s still called The Manor.

Postcode area: Edgware HA8

 

* The picture of Edgwarebury Lane on this page is adapted from an original photograph, copyright Martin Addison, at Geograph Britain and Ireland, made available under the Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic Licence. Any subsequent reuse is hereby freely permitted under the terms of that licence.